Emerald Management Reviews

Design/methodology/approach - Outlines how previous research has produced mixed findings with regard to the relationship between age and job performance; suggests that the conflicting findings may be due to a number of factors including, among others, a focus on 'core' task activities. Describes the meta-analysis undertaken of 380 empirical studies, published during or before 2006, examining the relationship of age to ten key performance dimensions.

Findings - Puts forward how the findings found support for the proposition that older workers contribute effectively to non-core domains of job performance; reports how age was largely unrelated to core task performance and that age was not significantly related to creativity. Reveals, among other things, how age had a weak, negative relationship with performance in training programmes but had a positive relationship with organization citizenship behaviour.

Research limitations/implications - Presents a future research agenda based on the findings.

Practical implications - Employers should make better use of older workers.

Originality/value - Provides evidence that new approaches should be adopted to study the age-performance relationship.